Hollande wins in Paris, loses in Athens

Less votes than Hollande but, more clout?

The important electoral result yesterday is not the one in France (although a lot can be said of Hollande winning by less than all polls were saying). No, the result that is sending Europe into convulsion (even if no one is ready to quite admit it publicly) is the one in Greece where not only a bona fide truly Nazi party made it to Parliament (next to Golden Dawn Marine Le Pen is your garden variety democratic right wing), but the parties that refuse to abide by European conditions to the rescue of Greece got at the very least 60% of the vote and enough in Parliament to block a grand coalition between Pasok and NeoDemocracia. Not that the expected grand coalition, forced upon the Greeks, had much hope of success in the best of cases.In Greece the runner up is a certain radical leftist party, Syriza, which sounds awfully a lot like the left of Melenchon in France, except that its leader Alexis Tsipras is better looking and that there is also an historical communist party that also run and got seats whereas in France the communist party hid in the skirts of Melenchon. Syriza seems to hold the keys to any deal in Greece which is a problem since it does not seem to want to make any deal. (1)

There is the real possibility that Europe will have to decide if it wants to bail out once again Greece, and this time for nearly free, or accept the sad fact that the Euro is not for all and that Greece should go bankrupt and back to the Drachma.

For Hollande this is very bad. For the legislative elections of next month the temptation is going to be terribly strong for the Melenchon group to pull out a Syriza on him. And even if Hollande were to survive such a blackmail, he may have to chose between fulfilling his electoral promises or use the hoped for cash for his promises to save the Euro and pay yet more money for Greece.

At least last night conciliatory tone of Hollande, in rather stark contrast to the euphoria of his followers who have no idea what may be going their way, shows that the guy is aware that his victory of last night is no prize.

------1) Syriza seems to have penty of ex-commies in its fold anyway, starting with dear Alexis himself.